Obsidian Faith (3 page)

Chapter Four

April 2001

“Mom and Dad are late,” Trevor said. It still sounded weird to call them that sometimes, even though it was almost the fourth anniversary of his adoption. “They said they’d be back in time for dinner.”

He eyed the steaming hot dishes on display before him on the Baileys dinner table. His stomach growled an audible displeasure for denying his almost fifteen-year-old digestive system the sustenance it craved. Trevor looked at the clock. David and Elena were already a half an hour later coming back from the church-sponsored marriage retreat than he’d anticipated, and denying himself Brenda’s delicious cooking was a special form of torture.

Brenda gestured toward the unused place setting Trevor occupied next to Shanice where he had yet to dish out any food. “You could eat just a little bit and save a fraction of your stomach for whatever Elena’s going to prepare later.”

“You know Mom’s macaroni and cheese is better than anything in the box,” Shanice said, holding a forkful just under his nose to tempt him even further. Trevor gobbled up the pasta so quickly he took the fork from her hand.

Shanice giggled. “Give me my fork back.” Trevor pulled the tines slowly between his lips, making sure he got ever bit of the gooey cheese off the fork. Shanice then pulled a face, “On second thought, keep that fork. I’ll take your unused one.” She grabbed Trevor’s fork before he could protest.

Isaiah took another helping and passed Trevor the crock. “Might as well eat something for now. A growing young man like you’ll be hungry again in a couple of hours anyway.”

“Okay,” Trevor said, and took the dish and ladled out a generous helping of macaroni and cheese onto his plate, plus a little bit of the other entrees as well.

After dinner, Trevor, Isaiah, Shanice, and Tanya, the Baileys’ current foster child, played a game of horse on the carport in front of the house, while Brenda, who’d just given birth to twins took advantage of napping while the babies were down. They were arguing over whether or not Shanice had been over the line when she made her most recent point when an Orange County Sheriff’s vehicle pulled up in front of the house.

Isaiah lobbed the ball to Trevor. “Keep playing, and make sure Shanice doesn’t cheat. I’ll be right back.”

Trevor wanted to keep playing. He also didn’t want to think about what the Sheriff’s car showing up now that David and Elena were almost two hours late meant. Isaiah’s grief-stricken look after one of the deputies spoke to him was enough to clue Trevor in that something was terribly wrong, and even though he wanted to scream and run away from whatever news they were bringing, he was rooted to the spot.

Trevor took his turn and then another, and then another, arcing perfect shot, after perfect shot into the goal as the Sheriff’s deputies pulled away and Isaiah came back to join them.

“Dad, Trevor’s cheating,” Shanice complained.

“It’s okay, honey,” Isaiah said. “Why don’t you and Tanya go get some ice cream while I have a talk with Trevor.”

“Okay,” Shanice said, obedient although her forehead was wrinkled in confusion.

The girls were barely at the door when Trevor stopped shooting the ball and turned to Isaiah. “They’re not coming back, are they?” he said, outwardly calm, but enraged inside.

Isaiah reached for him, enfolding Trevor in his arms as the ball dropped at their feet. “No, son. I’m sorry.”

When Trevor was able to pull himself together enough not to bawl like a baby, he asked “What happened?”

“Law enforcement is still investigating, but their car went off the road into some trees not far from Ocoee. They died on impact. Another car was involved, but when the Sheriff arrived no one else was on scene.”

“What kind of person does that?” Trevor said, but what he was thinking was,
I’m an orphan again
. His parents had been almost home when someone selfishly took them away from him. Trevor felt worse at twice the age he’d been when he first went into the system, if that were possible.

Everyone in the Bailey household were in bed, including Trevor. He again occupied the guest room while Shanice and Tanya doubled up, but he was unable to sleep. All he could think of was David and Elena, and how they would never scold him again about leaving his socks all over the place, or about brushing his teeth even after snacks.

He would miss David writing programs with him, and Elena making her famous Italian dishes, and both of them going to his sports games and school events as his parents. Most of all, he would miss their hugs, which he’d tolerated when he first came to live with them, but had grown to expect and require, about as much as he needed air to breathe.

Since he’d heard the news, the pain of their loss had lodged in his heart and would not budge. He felt as if he were suffocating from it, because nothing and no one could bring them back. Trevor turned, punched the pillow, and settled in another position.

He was watching the red LED numbers on the clock count forward in time when he heard the door open, then the footprints of a small person walking toward the bed. He didn’t have to turn around to see who it was.

“Trevor? Are you asleep?” Shanice stage-whispered.

“No,” he said.

That was apparently all the invitation she needed. Shanice went around to the other side and hopped into bed with him.

“It’s way past your bedtime. You’re going to be in so much trouble,” he said.

“Not if you don’t tell on me,” she said, and snuggled under the cover next to him. They lay side by side in silence for a while until Shanice couldn’t stand it. “Mom and Dad won’t let them take you away again, Trevor. You’ll see.”

Her confidence was reassuring. He’d been hurting so much for David and Elena he hadn’t thought of where he would go if they hadn’t made some arrangements for him. His uncle Philip had called Isaiah promising to contact them again with the funeral plans, and asking if Trevor wanted to come stay with him, but Isaiah had thankfully declined.

“I asked Dad if Uncle David and Aunt Elena were in heaven and he said they were,” Shanice said with the certainty of a ten-year-old whose budding faith could not be shaken.

“You know what I think?”

“What?” she said.

“I think it sucks that they’re gone. It sucks that whoever hit their car didn’t even stop to see if they were okay, or to call the police. And it really sucks that I’m never going to see them again!”

Shanice didn’t call him on getting so loud that he could’ve woken up the whole house. She just scooted closer and hugged his neck. Trevor was so overcome by her offer of comfort his heart unclenched and all the pain lodged there from when he was told of his parents death came rushing out of him. As tears streamed out of his eyes, Shanice held him close, not caring that he was wetting up her pajama top with his tears.

He wasn’t aware that Shanice was crying, too, until he heard her say through her tears, “You’re still my adopted brother, Trevor, and I’ll never leave you. ‘One for each other and each other for one,’ right?”

“Right.” Trevor could only agree, because it seemed as if the one thing that would never change would be the commitment they’d made to each other as orphans.

Trevor hated that the topic of conversation after David and Elena’s funeral became “who will take the orphan boy they adopted?” The Baileys, as his godparents, had been the most likely candidates, but Isaiah and Brenda had inquired and were not qualified to take him since they now had the twins, another foster child, and Shanice in a house that was considered too small to add another adoptive child.

Trevor’s preference would’ve been the Baileys, if for no other reason than to be spared this conversation. However, David’s and Elena’s parents called the meeting immediately following the gathering of friends and family after the funeral where, like it or not, he was a witness to their heated debate.

“Connie and I live in a retirement home,” David’s father, Robert said. “Hardly the kind place for a teenager.” A thin, wiry man with wispy salt and pepper hair, who couldn’t seem to stand still, he paced the floor incessantly as he spoke.

“Maureen, what about you and Edgar?” Grandma Connie addressed Elena’s parents. She was the opposite of her husband, a matronly woman of average height. “Can you take him?”

“We already have our daughter Nina and her three children living with us,” Edgar said. “We’re packed to the gills as it is.” Elena’s father was the most grandfatherly of the two, because he actually engaged Trevor when he was around.

“Can’t you two move into David and Elena’s house and take care of him?” Maureen said. Elena’s mother didn’t look as much like a grandmother as Grandma Connie, because she was still slender enough to look younger.

“And lose our rent-controlled condo in the city? We can’t go back to taking care of lawns and homeowner’s fees and the like.” Robert was adamant.

“Listen, I’ll take the kid,” Philip said. “It makes more sense because I have no attachments, and he can move into my condo where there’s plenty of room.”

“What about the house?” Connie clutched conspicuously absent pearls.

“We can put the house on the market. This way he’ll at least stay in Orlando, go to the same school, and what not.” For someone who acted as if he could care less most of the time, Philip had a few ideas mapped out in advance, it seemed.

Edgar was the first adult to speak directly to Trevor about any of it. “So what do you think, Trevor? Would you like to go and stay with your Uncle Philip?”

The answer was an emphatic
no,
but Trevor realized he was out of options, especially if there was any hope of him staying close to Shanice and the Baileys. This solution would have to do for now.

“Yeah, I guess,” Trevor said. He wasn’t quite sure his selfish uncle had the ability to parent anyone. Given his choices now, he’d take what he could get over being fostered by strangers again, and possibly having to move far away from Orlando which had essentially become his home,

“Then it’s settled,” Philip said with a smile that Trevor didn’t quite believe was genuine.

Chapter Five

When Philip stepped up, it seemed like the answer to all their prayers, especially Trevor’s. The day he moved in with Philip paled in comparison to when he’d moved in with David and Elena. At least materially, it did.

Philip escorted Trevor to his room, swung the door open and waved an arm like he was a spokesmodel.

“And this is where you’ll be crashing.” Philip said. “Go on in and make yourself at home.”

Trevor tried not to show how excited he was, but he couldn’t help but return Philip’s grin when he saw the state-of-the-art computer equipment in his room, together with the desktops and monitors he already owned courtesy of the Kyles.

“Go on,” Philip said. “Take her for a spin, then after you unpack, we’ll order some takeout.”

While the computers were booting up, Trevor checked out the video game systems, both a PlayStation 3 and an XBox 360 with a video game library that would make the average kid’s mouth water.

Even the furniture smelled new. After test driving his new computer equipment, he wheeled his luggage over to the closet and opened the door. Surprisingly, there were a few new clothes already hanging inside in his size.

“Wow!” Trevor said, as he riffled through the cool jeans, t-shirts, and light jackets bearing names that he knew were more expensive than the Old Navy gear the Kyles had been fond of. Maybe staying with his Uncle Phil wouldn’t be all bad. Trevor missed David and Elena so much he felt guilty being sucked in by all the cool stuff he was getting now that they were gone.

He logged off the computers and put away his things. Being on the computer reminded him so much of David he didn’t want to do any serious programming at the moment. After he put all his belongings away, he went in search of his uncle. The possibility of food usually made him excited enough to put away some serious grub, but not with the memories of David and Elena bombarding him even as he performed mundane tasks like folding his shirts and socks the way Elena had shown him, and hiding his browsing trail on the computer like David had shown him.

When he entered the kitchen, Phil wasn’t alone as he’d expected. A buxom blonde was wound around his torso.

“Excuse me,” Trevor said and ducked back out the door. He was halfway back down the hall when after hurried fumbling his uncle called out to him.

“Hey, Trev, man come back. I want you to meet somebody.”

Trevor didn’t want to make nice with his uncle’s flavor-of-the-month, as David and Elena called Philip’s friends on more than one occasion when they thought Trevor wasn’t paying attention. His uncle’s womanizing was one of the things he and his brother had not seen eye-to-eye on.

Trevor shuffled back toward the kitchen and re-entered. This time the woman was sitting on one of the barstools, and Phil was standing next to her, his arm draped around her shoulders.

“Trevor, this is Stacee, with a double-e. Stacee, my nephew, and now foster son, Trevor Kyle.”

Trevor didn’t particularly like how Philip cavalierly assumed their situation was permanent.  He and, especially Shanice were still hoping the Bailey’s foster child would get adopted so he could move in with them. Trevor kept his face impassive as Stacee spoke to him.

“Hi, Trevor,” she said in an inordinately high-pitched voice. “Nice to meet you.”

“Hello, Ms. Stacee,” Trevor said, remembering how the Kyles had taught him to address his elders.

“You can drop the Ms.” she said. “I’m just plain old Stacee.”

“Yeah, Trevor, we don’t have those kinds of rules around here. Dave and Elena were fantastic parents, but hey, I’m just barely over thirty. A little more than twice your age, but young enough you don’t have to be so formal.”

“Okay,” Trevor said.

Phil leaned in and tongue-kissed Stacee so thoroughly, it made Trevor uncomfortable. Finally, he peeled himself away from Stacee and grabbed the phone.

“You like Chinese, Trevor?” Philip asked as he dialed.

Trevor wondered if Phil would’ve changed if he’d said no, but he didn’t bother. Chinese was great when he had an appetite. He wasn’t sure whether he’d be hungry once the food arrived, so he answered in the affirmative.

Stacee jutted her ample chest out and smiled at Trevor. She had a childlike quality about her, despite her very mature-looking body and state of dress. Trevor’s hormones responded in the manner in which they were designed. Thankfully he was wearing baggy shorts over tightey-whiteys or he might’ve had an embarrassing situation to explain. Even so, Trevor turned away and headed back to his room when Phil got off the phone and glued himself to Stacee again. He would get dinner later. Or not.

In the beginning, Philip appeared to be just as nice and caring as his brother. Well, at least his generosity trumped everything David and Elena had done for Trevor, and early on that was the only barometer by which he was able to measure the difference. It was easy for a kid coming from poverty such as his to have his head turned by expensive things. Plus Uncle Philip was cool in the beginning. Trevor was in hog heaven for all of two weeks before the other shoe dropped.

“Hey little buddy,” Uncle Philip said one evening after he’d gotten home from school. “Here’s your allowance for the month.”

Philip handed him a crisp one hundred dollar bill. “There’s more where that came from. I might just need you to pitch in and help your old uncle out with some work I’ll be bringing home every once in a while.”

“What kind of work?” Trevor held the money by one corner as if it might burn him.

“Some special computer work that only an expert like you can help me with.”

Trevor mentally puffed his chest out at being called an expert at first, but then his brow furrowed. “Don’t they have IT people at the bank where you work?”

“They do, but they’re doing other things with their time. The bank expects me to know this computer crap, but the fact is I don’t.”

“I could teach you a few things, I guess,” Trevor said, finally pocketing the bill.

“I think it would be better if you did them,” Philip said. “Don’t you want to pull a little weight around here? I know David and Elena taught you that it’s a good thing to help out. To pay your keep, so to speak.”

“Yeah, they did.” Trevor said. That sounded logical, so Trevor would go with it. What harm would it be to help his computer illiterate uncle out?

“All I need is for you to find some information on people for me every once in a while on the internet,” Phil said. “These are people I’m investigating for my work.”

“What kind of information do you need?”

“Full names, addresses, banking information, social security numbers.”

“David said it’s unethical to have access to people’s personal information like that.”

“Not if you work where I work,” Philip said. Philip was a CPA who worked in one of the banks that held the state of Florida’s unclaimed property funds. “And you’re helping me do my work, so there won’t be any need to share this with anyone else, right?”

“I guess.”

“I’ll tell you what. You do this work for me from time to time, you get double the allowance I just gave you. Also, you can stay up as long as you want at night, just so you get up and go to school. Deal?”

What teenaged boy wouldn’t enjoy rules relaxed to non-existence, no formal bedtime, and an allowance big enough to bankroll whatever vices he could buy before coming of age to sample them as a matter of course?

Trevor’s reluctance was overruled by his desire to stay up and watch some late night skin flicks on his Uncle’s cable. “Deal.”

“I’ll bring the first list tomorrow,” Philip said. “They have money sitting in the state coffers that I want to get back to them, so you’ll be doing these folks a favor.”

Easy peasy.  Trevor didn’t feel like he had the right to question any further at the time, since Philip did work at a bank. Besides he was an adult, a banking professional, and must know better about the legality of such things.

“Okay. I’m gonna go do my homework,” Trevor said, his mind now on the first of many adult films he would get to watch while under Philip’s care.

Trevor took the huge allowances, the money making it easy for him to get into other things no middle school child should have access to. The most taboo of them was watching dirty movies, until he began to hang out at Phil’s adult parties.